Piero di Cosimo’s Saint John, by Joseph Stanton

Saint John the Evangelist, by Piero di Cosimo (Italy). 1504-1506.

Piero di Cosimo’s Saint John
 
This Evangelist is a paradox.
His face so gentle,
so benign,
transcendent with love of God
 
and mankind, too--
belies his powerful hands,
muscular of palm,
thick of wrist.
 
These are the hands of a man
you would not want
to wrestle with,
but, strangely,
 
they are also
the hands of a saint so pure
he persuades poison
to depart as snake.     
 
They are, we also know,
the hands of Christ’s best friend
who sticks with his Jesus
to the bitterest of ends.
 
And these are the hands,
that will, at the last,
craft the fiercely lovely poetry,
the words that will be
 
revelations.
 
Joseph Stanton

Joseph Stanton has published five books of poems. His most recent, Things Seen, is an ekphrastic collection. His poems have appeared inPoetry, New Letters, Antioch Review, Harvard Review, Ekphrasis, and many other journals and anthologies. He is a Professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He occasionally teaches poetry workshops, such as the “Starting with Art” workshops he has taught recently at Poets House (in New York City) and the Honolulu Museum of Art. For more information on Stanton's latest ekphrastic collection see:http://brickroadpoetrypress.com/order-books/things-seen-by-joseph-stanton